The present invention relates to equipment designed to produce a combustible gas from underwater electrical discharge and more particularly to capturing the different forms of energy created by the hydrolysis of water by underwater arcing. The invention has its origins in the Eldridge patent of 1898 (U.S. Pat. No. 603,058), which discussed a method to generate a combustible gas by use of an electrical arc between two carbon electrodes. Several inventions improved the production of the combustible gas and the reagents used to create the arc. The technology of underwater electric welding via the use of an arc between carbon electrodes to repair ships, was established in the last century. It was then discovered that the gas bubbling to the surface from underwater arcs is combustible.
The arc is generally produced by a power unit, such as a welder, operating at low voltage (25-35 V) and high current (300 A to 3,000 A). The current brings to incandescence the tip of the carbon electrodes which erodes the carbon rods and releases ionized carbon atoms. The arc separates the water into ionized atoms of hydrogen and oxygen. The area surrounding the arc is, therefore, comprised of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen ions. A number of chemical reactions then occur within said area, such as: the formation of the H2 and O2 molecule; the oxidation of H+ into H2O; the oxidation of carbon ions into CO; the combustion of CO and O into CO2; and other reactions. Other byproducts of the process are heat and light.
Although the combustible gas produced does not generate the pollutants of the combustion exhausts of typical fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas, certain factors have limited the usefulness of the process. The prior art set out to solve practical problems such as excess production of greenhouse gases and the reaction's rapid consumption of the carbon rods used for the electrodes. One reason for lack of industrial and consumer maturity is the short duration of the carbon electrodes which require replacement and servicing. The short lifetime of the carbon rods typically requires the halting of the operation and replacement of the electrodes often. The replacement of the electrodes made them of little use to both industry and consumer operations. The Santilli patent U.S. Pat. No. 6,183,604 uses an arc system whereby one of the electrodes continuously moves thereby changing the position of the arc. This change in position reduces the amount of carbon dioxide produced in the various chemical reactions inside the reaction chamber. A constant replenishment of carbon rods would facilitate practical operation of the process first described by Eldridge.